Chapter 16 – The Hidden Pulse
Night had fallen heavy over the Flintclaw Tribe.
The sky was black and cold, the stars dimmed by drifting smoke from the forge halls.
Inside the great tent of the Patriarch, firelight flickered across aged faces.
Sacks of freshly mined ore lay stacked in the center, each marked with the Flintclaw seal. The air shimmered faintly with heat, and the scent of burning charcoal mingled with something metallic and sharp.
"Begin the refinement," ordered Patriarch Harun Flintclaw, his voice hoarse but commanding.
The elders nodded. Dozens of small bronze furnaces glowed to life. Bellows pumped. Ores were crushed and melted, their molten light reflecting in the elders' eyes like liquid gold.
The Patriarch stood over the process with hands clasped behind his back. "Young Master Ren must absorb the refined essence by dawn. His breakthrough depends on this batch."
An elder beside him squinted into the flames. "Patriarch, these ores came from the lower shafts, yes? They radiate faint traces of power… quite pure."
"Indeed," Harun said proudly. "The miners may be crude, but fortune smiles on the loyal. The boy Zaric and his sister mined most of this load. Perhaps they're not entirely useless."
The elders murmured approval. The molten ore flared briefly, a shimmer of gold light rippling through it.
"Good," the Patriarch said, smiling faintly. "Prepare the essence stones."
But as the hours passed, the smiles began to fade.
The molten light dimmed too quickly. The golden glow sputtered and vanished before the refining trays were even cooled.
When the first elder lifted a finished crucible, his brow furrowed.
"Strange," he muttered. "The essence density is… unstable."
Another elder tested a shard. "It's empty," he said softly. "No pulse. Like the spirit inside has already fled."
The Patriarch's expression darkened. "Nonsense. The ore glowed when it was brought up. Continue refining."
They obeyed.
But with each furnace emptied, more of the truth revealed itself.
Ore after ore produced nothing but brittle ash and faintly shimmering dust — the empty husks of what had once been essence-rich minerals.
"Their cores are hollow," murmured the chief alchemist. "It's as if something drained them before we touched them."
The Patriarch slammed his cane against the floor. "Impossible! You mean to tell me the mountain itself devoured its own spirit?"
No one answered.
The flames hissed quietly, burning low.
At last, Harun exhaled sharply. "Seal the results. Do not spread word of this. Deliver what remains to Young Master Ren. He will still attempt the absorption ritual at dawn."
The elders bowed in silence.
On the outskirts of the village, under a sliver of moon, a lone figure moved across the field.
Zaric stood barefoot in the dust, his body slick with sweat. His tunic clung to him, torn and stained with earth.
Before him stretched a patch of open ground where the tribe's training camp ended and the wild hills began. The soil here was cold and firm — perfect for practice.
He lowered into a stance, inhaled deeply, and began the motions of the Stone Serpent Flow.
At first, his movements were clumsy — arms too stiff, breathing uneven. But slowly, the rhythm found him. His feet pressed into the soil like roots, and each exhale rolled through his limbs like a wave.
Step, twist, breathe.
The dust around his feet began to stir.
He repeated the pattern again and again, feeling the pulse of the ground beneath him, the slow, steady thrum that echoed faintly in his veins.
The Yellow Amethyst glowed softly under his skin, responding to his focus.
Each breath pulled a thread of energy from the soil, faint but real, feeding it into his body.
He didn't need to see the essence — he could feel it now, the way the earth hummed beneath his toes, alive and ancient.
He struck forward, palms sweeping like a serpent gliding through sand. The air cracked faintly — a whisper of pressure following the motion.
Zaric froze, eyes widening.
He had felt it — a ripple of power, faint but controlled.
A laugh escaped him, half disbelief, half triumph.
"I did it…"
He repeated the movement, slower this time, guiding his breathing as Varrin Kael had shown the warriors earlier that day.
Dust coiled upward, forming the outline of a swirling serpent before fading into the night breeze.
Each repetition drained his muscles, yet filled his heart with exhilaration. The amethyst pulsed faster, its rhythm aligning perfectly with his own.
The energy didn't just move through him — it listened.
He could sense the stones beneath his feet, the moisture hidden in the soil, even the dull heartbeat of the mountains far beyond.
This was no mere exercise.
This was communion.
Hours passed. When at last Zaric sank to his knees, drenched and trembling, dawn's first light was already creeping over the hills.
The amethyst within him throbbed faintly, releasing waves of calm strength.
He stared at his hands — raw, shaking, but glowing faintly with that same dim yellow light.
"If this is what the First Vein can do…" he whispered, awe in his voice, "what will happen when I reach the Second?"
He gazed toward the distant heart of the tribe, where smoke still rose from the Patriarch's forge tents.
He didn't know that, even as he drew power from the earth, the elders were sealing urns of empty ash to send to Ren Flintclaw — ashes of the same ores that had already fed the amethyst inside him.
At sunrise, the Patriarch's servants carried the finished crucibles to Ren's courtyard.
Each one glimmered faintly, but without true essence, only a hollow sheen remained.
"Deliver them," Harun ordered, forcing a smile. "Tell Young Master Ren the tribe offers him the finest of Copperveil's bounty."
The servants bowed and departed, unaware that they carried nothing but the shadows of stolen strength.
And far beyond the village walls, a boy wiped the sweat from his brow, the earth still trembling faintly beneath his feet.
The mountain's heart had chosen its new master.